Industry Updates
This broad category includes articles concerning health insurance costs, carrier and health plan news, changing benefits technology, and surveys by the Kaiser Family Foundation and others on employee benefits.
A federal judge has blocked multiple provisions of the Trump administration’s Affordable Care Act (ACA) overhaul from taking effect Monday as scheduled. The plaintiffs, including multiple large cities like Baltimore and Columbus, Ohio, as well as organizations like the Main Street Alliance, sued in an attempt to block the regulations in early July, arguing they could ...
In its new national campaign—titled "Health Insurance is Broken"—a television advertisement shows Medicare Advantage (MA) enrollees struggling with the sign-up process, facing coverage denials due to unexpected changes and running into issues with prior authorization.
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) will seek external experts for a new committee tasked with providing strategic guidance on the care provided by government insurance programs. The HHS announced Thursday that the Healthcare Advisory Committee will offer recommendations to Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Administrator Mehmet ...
US President Donald Trump has backed down from setting high tariffs on pharmaceuticals and semiconductors imported from the European Union. Last month, Trump said pharmaceuticals and semiconductors were not covered by the US and EU’s handshake trade deal – meaning those sectors could have faced tariffs rates of 250% and 100% respectively. But according to new details ...
Employers and benefits advisors are facing a growing challenge: How to offer access to these high-demand, life-changing therapies without undermining the financial sustainability of their health plans.
As a late-summer COVID-19 spike sweeps across the Bay Area, health experts warn that access to vaccines this fall will be clouded by confusion — and some believe that is intentional. The Food and Drug Administration is expected to restrict eligibility for the updated 2025–26 vaccines to adults 65 and older and those with underlying health conditions. Millions of Americans who ...
Teams spend months preparing for open enrollment (OE), fine-tuning every detail to ensure a smooth rollout. When new plans are on the table, those months are often consumed with finalizing details and building them into the benefits platform. Yet one critical piece is often overlooked: how these plans will be communicated to employees. The success ...
Almost 2 in 3 physicians say there aren’t enough qualified doctors to fill openings in their area, in another sign of how the health care workforce is straining to meet patient demand. The big picture: Mergers and acquisitions of practices, turnover from pandemic-era burnout and expansion into underserved areas are raising doubts about whether the nationwide shortage of ...
Owners of small and mid-sized businesses wish policymakers would take more notice of their health benefits problems. About 92% of the owners who participated in a recent online survey agreed with the statement that “government leaders aren’t doing enough” to address their health benefits problems. Even more, 93%, agreed that policymakers should come up with ...
Big U.S. employers expect median health care costs to rise 9% in 2026, according to new survey data from the Business Group on Health. That’s up from an 8% employer increase forecast for 2025, and it appears to be the biggest annual increase forecast that the employers have provided since 2010, when the Business Group on ...